Targeted acupuncture may offer women with major depression a safe and effective alternative to antidepressant medication, new research suggests.

Investigators at Stanford University School of Medicine in California found that women with major depressive disorder treated with depression-specific acupuncture had a 63% response rate after 12 sessions compared with a 44.3% response rate in 2 combined control groups who were treated with either acupuncture not known to help alleviate depressive symptoms or Swedish massage.

"Pregnancy just by its nature can bring out some underlying psychiatric and emotional issues ... but treatment of depression during pregnancy is critically important so that a woman can maintain her sense of well being and take good care of herself, her fetus and, someday, her child," study coauthor Deirdre Lyell, MD, Stanford University School of Medicine, said in a statement.

Led by Rachel Manber, PhD, the study was published in the March issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Response Rates Significantly Higher

For the study, investigators randomized 150 women whose pregnancies were between 12 and 30 weeks of gestation and who met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fourth Edition) criteria for major depressive disorder and who scored at least 14 on the 17-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression.

Of the 141 women who eventually entered the study, 52 received depression-specific acupuncture, 49 received control acupuncture, and 49 others received Swedish massage.

Treatments were provided twice a week for the first 4 weeks and then weekly thereafter for 4 additional weeks, with each session lasting about 25 minutes.

The investigators found that response rates were significantly higher in women who received depression-specific acupuncture than for either control group. Response rates in women randomized to the 2 control interventions did not differ significantly from each other at 37.5% for the control acupuncture group vs 50% for the massage group.

On the other hand, remission rates did not differ significantly between women who received depression-specific acupuncture at 34.8% and the combined control groups at 29.5%. They also did not differ between those assigned to the control acupuncture group at 27.5% or the massage group at 31.2%.

Thirty-three of the study participants discontinued treatment before the study endpoint, 30% of them for reasons related to the pregnancy. Some women in both acupuncture groups reported transient discomfort at the point of needle insertion, and 1 woman experienced bleeding at the needle site.

Significantly fewer women who received massage reported any adverse effects compared with the 2 acupuncture groups.

Clinically Meaningful

The study authors point out that the benefits observed with depression-specific acupuncture can be considered "clinically meaningful" when assessed in a broader context of depression studies.

Although there are no randomized controlled trials of antidepressants being used during pregnancy, 1 randomized controlled trial found that interpersonal psychotherapy produced a 52% reduction in Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression scores and a 19% remission rate after 16 weeks of therapy, to which the currently study compares very favorably.

According to the study, antidepressant use during pregnancy doubled between 1999 and 2003, but many women are reluctant to take these medications because of safety concerns. In fact, in this particular study, 94% of the women involved expressed reluctance to take an antidepressant because of their pregnancy.

"Because theres this concern about medication among pregnant women and their physicians, its important to find an alternative," said Dr. Manber.

Results from this study therefore suggest that this standardized acupuncture protocol could be considered a "viable treatment option" for depression during pregnancy, the investigators conclude.

Michael Thase, MD, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, cautions that findings from this study are preliminary, although they suggest that depression-specific acupuncture may have value in major depressive disorder in this patient population.

On the other hand, another study assessing depression-specific acupuncture in a broader population of men and women with major depressive disorder failed to find a significant effect from the modality, so evidence supporting acupuncture for the treatment of major depressive disorder is not consistent.

"Still there is reason to be cautious when prescribing antidepressants in pregnancy, and one has to weigh the pros and cons of using an antidepressant on an individual basis, he told Medscape Psychiatry.

"If these promising findings are confirmed, it would be good to have another option to complement the focused forms of psychotherapy which are currently used for antenatal depression," he added.

The study was funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The study authors and Dr. Thase have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

In the 1992 presidential
campaign, Bill Clinton was a heavy underdog to popular incumbent George H. W.
Bush. Bush was considered unbeatable due to foreign policy successes including
the end of the Cold War and routing Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War. But
Bushs approval ratings, which had been in the 90 percent range, began to dip as
his campaign ignored the economic recession. Clintons campaign manager James
Carvilles now famous campaign slogan, "Its the economy stupid," helped turn
the tide and Bill Clinton became the forty-second American president.

Just like George Bushs 1992
presidential campaign, todays medical community continues to promote the
medical myths associated with cholesterol while ignoring the real cause of
cardiovascular disease, inflammation.

Conventional opinion and
current medical dogma holds that low cholesterol, especially low LDL
cholesterol, reduces the risk and incidence of heart disease and stroke. This
belief is so entrenched in the medical community that the FDA now approves drugs
to prevent heart disease, as it did with Zetia and Vytorin, solely on the
evidence that they lower LDL cholesterol levels. Zetia has never been proven to
reduce heart attacks, strokes or death. Statin drugs help reduce the risk of
heart attack and stroke for those whove already had a cardiac event (one
percent over placebo) but fail to reduce death in women, the elderly, men over
the age of 47, and in men without cardiovascular risk factors.

A 2006 study in The
Archives of Internal Medicine looked at seven trials of statin use in
nearly 43,000 patients, mostly middle-aged men without heart disease. In that
review, statins didnt lower mortality.

Nor did they in a study known
as Prosper, published in The Lancet in 2002, which studied statin use
in people seventy and older. Nor did they in a 2004 review in The Journal of
the American Medical Association, which looked at thirteen studies of
nearly 20,000 women, both healthy and with established heart disease.

Despite a growing voice of
reason, which became even louder after the recently released Enhance study, the
cholesterol zealots continue to view cardiovascular disease with tunnel vision.
This myopic vision fuels the cholesterol drug war which rages on as each
pharmaceutical company seeks to gain economic gain in the 40 billion dollar a
year lipid lowering drug market.

In an attempt to take on the
cholesterol Goliath, Pfizers Lipitor (10 billion dollars in sales annually),
Merck and Schering-Plough combined their cholesterol lowering drugs, Zocor and
Zetia, to form the "super drug" known as Vytorin. Vytorins goal was to lower
LDL cholesterol more than either drug could alone. Zetia lowers blood
cholesterol by blocking the absorption of dietary cholesterol from the
intestines. Zetia used alone is modestly effective in lowering LDL cholesterol
by approximately 17 percent. Zocor alone lowers LDL levels by 36 percentsimilar
to Lipitor.

The hope was that by lowering
LDL to dramatically low levels, Vytorin would do a better job of slowing the
accumulation of fatty plaques in the arteries. Vytorin did, in fact, reduce
LDLby a whopping 51 percent (similar to AstraZenecas Crestor).

However, the two-year
"Enhance" trial failed to prove that Vytorin is better than Zocor alone for
slowing plaque accumulation; instead atherosclerosis worsened in those taking
Vytorin.

Merck and Schering-Plough
suppressed this finding for twenty months.

The study results were not
revealed until the two drug companies were pressured into doing so by an article
in The New York Times and a Congressional inquiry. The marketers of
Vytorin said they had nothing to hide. Its hard to believe they werent just a
little reluctant to publish their highly anticipated study. The news that
Vytorin, which retails for $100 a month and did $2 billion in sales in 2007, was
clinically inferior (perhaps even dangerous) to generic simvastatin (statin),
costing less than $20 a month, obviously wasnt what stockholders wanted to
hear.

Merck and Schering-Plough are
running full-page ads daily in the Times and Wall Street
Journal, warning people not to be confused by a single study and to
continue taking Vytorin. The advice was backed by the American Heart
Association, which the Times reported receives nearly $2 million a year
from Merck/Schering-Plough Pharmaceuticals.

Other LDL lowering drugs have
bitten the dust in the last coupe of years as well.

Pfizers trial of its
much-anticipated drug torcetrapib, which raised HDL, the good cholesterol, and
lowered LDL, had to be stopped in 2006 because the drug caused heart attacks and
strokes.

Estrogen replacement therapy,
which is known to lower LDL cholesterol levels, failed to reduce the incidence
of heart attack and stroke in clinical studies.

Ok, if cholesterol lowering
isnt the answer for everyone, why do statins help people with existing heart
disease? Dr. James K. Liao of Brigham & Womens Hospital in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, has been investigating this question for over a decade. He
suspects that statins have other biological effects. His research shows that
statin drugs not only block cholesterol, but also an inflammation-generating
enzyme known as rho-kinase.

When Liao reduced the
rho-kinase levels in rats, they didnt get heart disease. "Cholesterol lowering
is not the reason for the benefit of statins," he concludes. Of course, there
are dozens of inflammatory chemicals that play a role in triggering
cardiovascular disease. Diet, health habits, our environment, even our
personality may initiate inflammatory chemicals that perpetuate cardiovascular
disease events.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said,
"People see only what they are prepared to see." As the evidence about
inflammation and cardiovascular disease rises, will conventional medicine and
the public at large be prepared to see that its not about lowering cholesterol
but in reducing inflammation? Hopefully, "Its the inflammation, stupid," will
become a common slogan in the campaign to fight cardiovascular disease.

Rodger Murphree, D.C., has
been in private practice since 1990. He is the founder of, and past clinic
director for a large integrated medical practice, which was located on the
campus of Brookwood Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. He is the author of
Treating and Beating Fibromyalgia
and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Heart Disease What Your Doctor Wont Tell You,
and Treating and Beating Anxiety and Depression with Orthomolecular
Medicine. He can be reached at www.treatingandbeating.com, by email at
drrodgerm@yahoo.com or 1-205-879-2383.

LIVE LOVE LAUGHEvery day can be filled with meaning. Take a moment, just the amount of time you need to take a deep breath and exhale slowly, to ask yourself what is my dream, and how will I get there from here?What can you stop doing or do differently to simplify your life and make it more meaningful? What is truly important to you? Do you give some time each week to your true priorities?Why not fill your life with love and laughter whenever you can? There is no greater gift than the gift of loving others. There is nothing wrong with taking some time for self-care too. Love your pet? Love walking out in nature? Make time for your passions and those things that add value to your life. Your body, mind and soul will thank you.Do you have a mission in life?Dream it. Think about it. Talk about it. Commit to it.

Two case studies reported in the September 2011 issue of the Journal of Chiropractic Medicine find chiropractic care to be effective in both alleviating migraine headaches and cervicogenic dizziness - dizziness originating from a mechanical disturbance of the neck. Since these are individual case studies, they each deal with just one individual's results with chiropractic care. However, the successful management of migraine headaches and dizziness in certain individuals has been known and reported within the chiropractic profession for more than 100 years. According to these specific case studies, a 52 year old female with a 40 year history of migraine headaches occurring approximately once a month was migraine-free at her 6 month follow up evaluation after receiving chiropractic care. Additionally, a 29 year old man with a 10 year history of progressive dizziness with symptoms including a sensation of excessive motion, imbalance, and spinning associated with neck pain and stiffness reported a reduction of pain and dizziness and an improved quality of life after chiropractic treatment. While not every migraine sufferer or individual with dizziness obtains these results, there are a great deal of those who do obtain full or partial relief. If you are suffering, don't continue to wait. Call your local chiropractor today for a professional no obligation consultation!

New research indicates those who lack adequate sleep tend to consume more food and do so without burning any additional calories. A different but also recent Swedish study found similar results where those who did not have proper sleep burned up to 20 percent less calories per day. In either case, weight gain is the end product. With the work more sleep less hectic lifestyles we have today coupled with the increased consumption of fast foods and sugary drinks, it's no secret why the obesity rates are skyrocketing. It's speculated that one of the reasons for weight gain is the hormones that regulate how hungry we are, when we're hungry and what kinds of foods we crave are negatively affected when we are sleep deprived. Another potential cause are the poor health decisions made when one lacks proper sleep. Lack of sleep has also been shown to be associated with other health related issues. So eat right, be healthy and ensure you remember to get proper sleep.

Survey: Chiropractic Care Outperforms All Other Back Pain Treatments, Including Medication

ACA Suggests Conservative Care Before Prescription Drug Use

In a new survey, chiropractic care outperformed all other back-pain treatments including prescription and over-the-counter medications, deep-tissue massage, yoga and Pilates. According to the American Chiropractic Association (ACA), this news reinforces the use of conservative care options as a first line of defense against pain.

The survey, released by a leading consumer product rating and survey publisher in late July, found that 65 percent of those surveyed using chiropractic care for back pain said it helped a lot. Only 53 percent of respondents using prescription medications found them as helpful.

Additionally, about half of those surveyed who are using deep-tissue massage, yoga or Pilates said those treatments helped a lot, and only 28 percent of respondents using over-the-counter medications reported that they helped a lot.

Current evidence-based guidelines support the use of conservative care such as chiropractic for conditions such as chronic lower back pain. In 2007, the Annals of Internal Medicine published low back pain guidelines developed by the American Pain Society and the American College of Physicians. Those guidelines recommended that, for patients who do not improve with self-care, doctors should consider non-pharmacologic therapies such as chiropractic care, massage therapy and acupuncture.

The issue of pain relief has gained visibility recently with the release of a government report which found that while the use of some illegal drugs has diminished, the abuse of prescription medications has sharply increased--particularly prescription opioid pain relievers such as Oxycontin and Vicodin. The report points out that unintentional opioid overdoses (once almost exclusively the fate of heroin abusers) are today increasingly caused by prescription painkiller abuse.

As this latest survey helps to demonstrate, chiropractic care is an evidence-based and effective treatment that can prevent patients from resorting to powerful drugs with potentially harmful consequences, said ACA President Dr. Rick McMichael. I urge health care providers, whenever possible, to recommend drug-free, conservative care interventions for their patients before prescribing medications that may be associated with negative side effects. Patients deserve to know their options.

Doctors of chiropractic provide drug-free, non-invasive treatment for many types of painful conditions, including acute and chronic back pain, neck pain, joint pain and headaches. For more information about chiropractic care, or to find a doctor of chiropractic near you, visit the American Chiropractic Associations website.

The American Chiropractic Association (ACA), based in Arlington, Va., is the largest professional association in the United States representing doctors of chiropractic. ACA promotes the highest standards of patient care and ethics, and supports research that contributes to the health and well-being of millions of chiropractic patients. Visit www.acatoday.org.

Chronic pain affects an estimated 116 million American adults - more than the total affected by heart disease, cancer, and diabetes combined, according to a recent Institute of Medicine report.

Allsup, a nationwide Social Security disability representation company, helps thousands of people with chronic pain obtain their SSDI benefits each year. To salute those who persevere, Allsup is distributing free posters for Pain Awareness Month in September and explaining how chronic pain is evaluated in the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) claims process.

SSDI is a payroll tax-funded, federal insurance program established in 1954. It provides a monthly benefit for people who have worked in the past, paid Social Security taxes and are unable to work for a year or more because of their disability

"Pain is a major consideration in many claims," said Ed Swierczek, Allsup senior claimant representative. In fact, there are court cases throughout the country that state the effect of pain on a persons functioning must be considered in the evaluation of a disability claim.

The Social Security Administration is required to consider pain and the limitations it causes when evaluating a disability claim. However, before pain may be considered, a medically determinable severe impairment must be established and the established impairment must reasonably be expected to produce the pain.

For example, individuals with lupus often experience pain in their joints or muscles, or in the form of migraines. Systemic lupus erythematosus is included in the SSAs Listing of Impairments and is considered a medically determinable severe impairment. Another common example is lower back pain due to a condition that meets the SSA listing of disorders of the spine.

"Because pain is subjective, the presence of a medically determinable severe impairment lends credibility to the pain, Swierczek said. It is important for individuals to inform their treating physicians each time they experience pain, and to document the presence of the pain at each office visit, if the pain is present."When evaluating a disability claim, the SSA must consider whether pain is severe enough to significantly limit a persons ability to perform basic work activities. These activities include:

Responding appropriately to supervision, co-workers and usual work situations

Dealing with changes in a routine work setting

The SSA also considers:

The location, duration, frequency and intensity of the pain (or other symptoms).

Factors that precipitate and aggravate the symptoms.

The type, dosage, effectiveness and side effects of any medication the individual takes or has taken to alleviate pain (or other symptoms).

Treatment, other than medication, the individual receives or has received for relief of pain (or other symptoms).

Any measures, other than treatment, the individual uses or has used to relieve pain (or other symptomse.g., lying flat on his/her back, standing for 15 to 20 minutes every hour or sleeping on a board).

Any other factors concerning the individuals functional limitations and restrictions due to pain (or other symptoms).

"The most important thing to remember is always let your doctor know what your symptoms are, be it pain, shortness of breath, fatigue, etc.," Swierczek said. "This not only documents your claim, but gives your doctor important information that he/she needs to provide treatment."